You get the ice. I’ll pour a double and serve up the details after the jump…

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Stewart v. CUS Nashville, LLC is a Fair Labor Standards Act action in which a bunch of employees who worked for Coyote Ugly claim that their employer shorted them on overtime pay. Two of the plaintiffs, Misty Blu Stewart and Sarah Stone, claimed that after they sued, they were the object of threatening posts appearing in various social media platforms, and thus decided to pursue claims of retaliation.

Specifically, Ms. Stewart saw this post on the blog of the owner of the Coyote Ugly location at which she worked. And Ms. Stone, alleged that she felt threatened when she saw this status update from Facebook friend, Daniel Huckaby, a Coyote Ugly Director of Operations. Huckaby, who admitted to being intoxicated on the night the post was made, and claimed not to recall making (or subsequently deleting) the status update.

For the HR professionals: Make sure that the anti-retaliation language in your employee handbooks is broad enough to include social media. Put a different way, if you downloaded your current employee handbook from a Prodigy message board; time to update.

Lawyers: When employment litigation ensues, it is not enough to reinforce to the key players at the company the importance of generally refraining from any behavior that could be construed as retaliatory. Be more specific and instruct them to be smart about social media use.